Is this the point of no return for British politics?

For a number of years people have been warning of the rise of far right ideology in the media and political spheres. We were told that we were over-reacting, that there was nothing to worry about. Well, it turns out there was something to worry about after all.

This week, a rising member of the Tory party (Katie Lam MP) explained how she wanted to change the rules for people with Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) to be able to deport us should we earn less than £39,000 a year (the median salary in the UK is £32,000), and/or had "taken from society" by claiming any kind of benefit (anything from jobseekers allowance to maternity leave, or state pension). This would affect about 3.5 million people (what amounts to 5% of the UK population: your friends and partners).

Comparisons have been unfavourably made with the, at the time, unprecedented scale of Idi Amin's expulsion of Asians from Uganda in the 70s (less than 30,000 people were in the end affected. Ironically they were welcomed in Britain).

The aim of this attack of our given rights is apparently to make the country more "culturally coherent". And one can't help wondering at this stage if this is some sort of euphemism for ethnic cleansing.

Not so long ago voicing this sort of ideas would have been career suicide for any mainstream politician. These days, not only is it being discussed seriously, it is a policy set out by political parties within reach of power. The UK and too many "Western" democracies are in dire political straights right now, facing an almost unprecedented peril from the far right. And traditionally centrist parties are caving in with little resistance, if any.

Lam is not a lonely voice that can blithely be dismissed and ignored either. Kemi Badenoch (Leader of the Opposition) has made it clear, via a spokesperson, that this proposal is "broadly in line" with Conservative party policy (The Shadow Home Secretary has even drafted Bill with Lam for this deeply unfair policy. The Bill was actually tabled in May this year).

But the Tories are only catching up. Reform UK has already suggested something similar (another step towards to two parties becoming indistinguishable), and Labour has also made noises about reforming ILR, though with no plans (as yet) to make retroactive changes as the Tories want to make. I'm told not to worry; that, while the words are getting sharper, these are indeed just that: words; empty ones at that. The country has apparently been here before (with May's hostile environment for example) but "it starts and ends with words only" and nothing will come of it.

I wish I had that optimism (or is it delusion?). I think the big difference this time is that it isn't only just the rhetoric of one party any more. Reform has lit the touch-paper, creating ever more pressure to the right (enabled by most of the media). The Tories are haemorrhaging voters to them and are therefore desperate to regain control somehow; seemingly by out-faraging Farage. They also have already broken their virginity with the idea of deporting people with the ill-fated Rwanda scheme.  there's no reason they won't dismantle ILR if they get a chance, even as the proposal seems unworkable on many levels (if only for the very scale of its impact).  And then there is Labour. Starmer is also very keen to appease Reform supporters for some unfathomable reason. Rather than outright condemnation  on moral and ethic grounds from Labour, the repeated stance seems to be: Reform are doing wrong, watch us doing it the way it should be; a petty managerial approach from a supposed left-wing party led by, amazingly, a former human rights lawyer! In the end, all three parties are egging each other on. This is a recipe for disaster.